True to it’s word, the Egyptian military has started clamping down on the Morsi government and the Muslim Brotherhood, seizing the media, and restricting travel of the Morsi government. From Fox News;

Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the leader of Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, is currently meeting with religious, opposition and youth leaders, the military said on its Facebook page Wednesday, and he will release a statement on Morsi’s fate after the meeting is over.

Khaled Daoud, spokesman of the main opposition National Salvation Front, which pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei leads, said that ElBaradei, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar mosque, and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, were part of the meeting. Political sources told Reuters that two members of a rebel youth group that is leading the anti-Morsi protests and members of the hardline Muslim fundamentalist al-Nour Party also are attending the meeting.

Morsi has said that he won’t step down and I believe him – it probably won’t be a step down, and I don’t think his resolve will frighten Army officers.

Egypt’s top military commander says the army is now in full control of the country and President Mohammed Morsi has been replaced by the chief justice of the constitutional court as the interim head of state.

Comments (66)

@47: I stated my ‘true colors’ explicitly in my first reply; I’m hardly trying to disguise them. I don’t love Obama, but I don’t hate him either. The entirety of my original post (a response to VOV) was to explain how Obama DID, for a brief while, raise our standing in the international community. And, since one’s ‘standing’ in matters in which they have no real record is based on perception, I explained that this happened because the then-candidate Obama was a very well-spoken, well-presented contrast to how large parts of the world viewed President Bush.

I always find it’s better to understand things than simply vilify them, but perhaps you feel differently. If you feel an explanation of how this all happened makes me akin to Baghdad Bob, that’s your call.

@51-Anonymous, I have to disagree with you when you say Obama is well-spoken. He cannot, and has never been able to, make a speech unless it is scripted and right in front of him. He demonstrated clearly twice in the national debates that he has no debating skills. Most people can speak coherently without ‘uh’, ‘er’ and ‘ummm’ in between words. He can’t. He only comes off as well-spoken when someone writes something up for him. Yes, he is an effective speaker when that happens.
I gave him 15 minutes of my time to listen to him summarize the national health care plan. It seemed like common sense. I wanted to see what would really happen. He could not effectively defend the sloppy mess it turned into.
He seldom ever holds a press conference, because it requires extemporaneous speaking skills, which he does not have. Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Clinton, and Reagan were all far more effective speakers than Obama in every way, including off-the-cuff remarks.
And my basis for this is my father, who taught theater and speech and hounded me, my sister and my brother at the dinner table every night to speak clearly and distinctly, and to communicate in an effective way.

@38. I can’t even go that far. If people really listened to him back in the run-up to 2008, they should have known that Baracka was incompetent, and his focus on Obamacare, which he now won’t implement, because that would make 2014 a bigger disaster than it’s going to be, was another tell.
The second time around, one is forced to acknowledge that he was re-elected on the promise of better Obamaphones and Obamacash from his Obamastash. It certainly wasn’t on his competence.

@49: I’m a regular here, and I don’t believe I ever ‘defended’ Obama from anything in my posts in this particular thread. I explained WHY he was supported as a candidate capable of restoring our standing in the international community, and also clearly pointed out that at the moment those ‘hopes and dreams’, if you will, have been crushed and many foreigners -both regular people and politicians- are pretty pissed at him.

How is that defending him? It was an explanation, that’s all.

I come on this site -and some liberal ones- because I try to understand political issues from multiple sides, especially foreign policy and military issues. In doing so, sometimes I defend this administration, and sometimes I’m in relative agreement with people here.

You talk about leadership and the military, so let’s change the question for a moment: is Obama a weak military leader? Absolutely. Now let’s change it back to the original point I was addressing: did candidate Obama, in his first run for President, raise our standing in the international community? Absolutely. And I can have both those very different opinions about the man at once.

@53: I agree that he’s far, far better on-prompter than off it, and probably put it best (in my reply #28) when I said he gave well-written and well-delivered speeches.

That said, I don’t think he’s absolutely horrible off-the-cuff. Certainly not the best, but my own recollection of the debates is that he did pretty well, barring an abysmal performance in the second one, was it?

Since I seem to be branded the water-boy for the President here, though, I’ll steer this back to my only real point: when running for President in 2007 – 2008, he gave some speeches that really resonated with people abroad, and THAT is why he helped raise our standing in the international community. They, too, had ‘hope’. Period.

I only skimmed it, but the only countries that seemed to favor McCain were the Philippines and Georgia. UK? 60 to 15 for Obama. Spain? 49 to 6. France? 64 to 4. South Korea? 50 to 24. Australia? 64 to 14. Japan? 66 to 15.

Very interesting bit of information coming out today in regards to the coup launched by the Egyptian military. This Debka article I read earlier this morning is a case-in-point. Apparently, President Obama and GEN Dempsey both called their counterparts in Egypt in an attempt to prevent the military coup from taking place. Specifically, Obama threatened GEN Asisi that all military aid would be cut if they go through with it (which is that talking point you heard on the news where Obama said he’s going to “review” our current relationship). This is extremely significant due to the fact that was a major factor in Morsi choosing to reject the Egyptian military’s 48 hrs ultimatum. Morsi felt with President Obama intervening in support of his regime would keep the military from taking action. He was wrong, and the Obama administration greatly miscalculated the military’s resolve. In other words, that VTC set the conditions for the coup to be launched. It could’ve been prevented by not getting involved, and Morsi would’ve resigned. But then again, Morsi and the Brotherhood being removed from power would also be a colossal foreign policy failure for this administration. Rather ironic for The Big O to try so hard to prevent his “crowning foreign policy achievement” from becoming a failure only to be the one that prompts it, yes? Oh, btw, this particular article came out before President Obama made his comment, which in my view tells me Debka has some damn good sources in their network…

Excerpt:

“Tuesday morning, US President Barack Obama and Chief of US General Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey intervened in the Egyptian crisis early Tuesday, July 2, in an attempt to save the besieged President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. Obama called the Egyptian president and Gen. Dempsey phoned Chief of staff Gen. Sedki Sobhi, hoping to defuse the three-way crisis between the regime, the army and the protest movement before it gets out of hand.
The crash of Morsi’s presidency would seriously undermine the objectives of the Arab Revolt pursued by the Obama administration as the arch-stone of his Middle East policy.
The administration had earlier sought unsuccessfully to persuade the heads of the Egyptian army not to issue its 48-hour ultimatum to Egypt’s rulers “heed the will of the people” by Wednesday afternoon – or else the army would intervene. The Americans proposed instead to leave Morsi in place after stripping him of presidential authority and installing a transitional government to prepare the country for new elections to the presidency and parliament.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that the army chiefs led by Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi rejected the American proposal.
Obama promised to back steps taken by President Morsi to show he is “responsive to the opposition’s concerns,” while Gen. Dempsey asked Egyptian generals to moderate their stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. The underlying message was that if they failed to do so, Washington might reconsider its $1.3 billion annual military assistance package which is the main source of income for the armed forces.
Heartened by the US president’s vote of support, Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamic allies, rejected the army’s ultimatum for resolving the country’s deadly crisis, saying it would sow confusion and ran contrary to the Egyptian constitution.”

Oh, and in case you’re curious about that comment where Obama said he’s “reevaluating” our aid to the Egyptian military:

“Obama said he has directed his staff to review U.S. assistance to Egypt; American law forbids aid to countries that remove democratic leaders via a military coup, though Obama did not use that term in his carefully worded statement.

“The United States continues to believe firmly that the best foundation for lasting stability in Egypt is a democratic political order with participation from all sides and all political parties — secular and religious, civilian and military,” Obama said.

While Obama and aides had urged Morsi to work with protesters in recent days, the Egyptian military announced Wednesday it has suspended the nation’s recent Islamic-backed constitution, called for early elections, and appointed the head of a constitutional court as Egypt’s interim head of state.”

And having said that, the next 48-72 hrs are going to see a lot of movement from the Brotherhood and Al Qaida elements in the country, as they attempt to adjust to the ongoing Egyptian Army operations targeting them for the past 24 hrs. By the end of this period, we can expect to see the violence begin a steady increase, with a high-profile attack being attempted by next week. I suspect the US embassy, western tourists stupid enough to have ignored the travel warnings, Egyptian Army HQ and our forces stationed in Sinai will be the primary targets. The Egyptian military as a whole will be locked in an urban fight with the Brotherhood that will extend from Cairo and Alexandria to the Sinai, where Taqfiri groups are sure to get a piece of the action. Don’t think for a minute that the Brotherhood is going to lay down and take it. They got a taste of power, and they’re going to put up a nasty fight before they surrender anything. It’s going to get worse before it gets better I’m afraid…

This is in response to Anon talking about what Obama offered in words during his campaign in ’08. Anyone that voted for him based on his words and not his actions, back then, in regards to his foreign policy experience, or any semblance of knowing a damn thing, is stupid. When Georgia was invaded by Russia, McCain came out immediately and made a statement condemning the Russian action while Obumbles took nearly a week and had to meet with 300 advisors before he even made a statement. That’s how incompetent he is on foreign affairs. He couldn’t even muster the words to use back then; so how the fuck could anyone think he was competent to run a country?

@58–so who did you vote for in the last two presidential elections, pray tell? Lemme guess–wasn’t McCain, wasn’t Romney. What do I win?

Oh, and as for your Gallup poll? So fuckin what? Haters gonna hate, as they say. I bet back in the 1980’s you’d pick up a poll where the Russians didn’t like our foreign policy either, and if we only elected Carter to a second term, or Mondale, etc., the world would be a sunshine and roses socialist paradise again.

Newsflash–anytime this country leads from the front, it’s usually a good thing. Either that or we’re cleaning up the mess those fuckers who hate us left behind. Please feel free to cite examples of where I’m wrong.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Don’t worry, Egypt won’t get fooled, again. It doesn’t matter if the US takes the side of the existing administration, the rebels, or stays out of it completely. We always end up getting bit in the ass when there is turmoil in that region.

Remember that the first Egyptian revolution was all on the locals. Unlike Libya we had nothing to do with it. In their second swing at it, they did again this time in spite of our efforts. For those who have questioned why we spend time and money getting to know foreign armies, this is why. Most of Egypt’s senior officers have spent time at US military schools and we do our best to impart western morality and professional values on them. It’s ironic that GEN Dempsey toed the party line and asked his counterpart to prevent the coup. In this case the Egyptian Army said “that attempt at democracy had some flaws and this guy is hurting the country. We’re doing what’s best for our people.” If we hadn’t spent years working with those officers that same army might have helped Mubarak slaughter thousands.

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We are all military combat veterans and we write primarily from that perspective. Everyone who writes here has a Combat Infantry Badge, a Combat Medic Badge, a Combat Action Badge or a Combat Action Ribbon. We write about issues that matter to combat veterans..read more »